Shopify Reports for Line-item Properties and Note Attributes

When running an online store on Shopify, you’ll need to keep track of the details of each customer's order. Whether it’s a customization request, additional instructions, or extra information provided during checkout, these are crucial to ensuring you fulfill each order perfectly. 

Shopify provides three important aspects to help you track these details: line item properties, note attributes, and notes.

The Line-Item Properties Report provides custom order details like personalization requests, special instructions, or various customizations that Shopify’s native reports do not provide. 

However, third-party apps from Shopify help you extract and organize this data and give clear insights into customer preferences and order specifics, ensuring accurate fulfillment and a good customer experience.

What are Line Item Properties?

In simple terms, Line Item Properties are special fields attached to the individual items in an order. These properties are often used when customers want to customize a product. Imagine a restaurant selling customized cakes, where customers choose the flavor, design, and size. 

Each of those choices would be a line item property. For example, in a product collection like “Custom Cakes,” customers can select different options for frosting, writing on the cake, and even decorations.

Here’s the amazing part: Shopify allows you to track all this additional information, making it easy to pass it on to vendors, warehouses, or anyone involved in fulfilling the order. 

Syncing this data ensures that your customization requests are accurate and timely. It's like keeping a clear checklist of all the personalization customers request without any hustle.

Understanding Note Attributes in Shopify

Note Attributes are used when the customer wants to add extra details, often in the checkout box provided by all the third-party apps. These could include special delivery instructions, a gift message, or any other personalized note unrelated to a specific product. 

While Line Item Properties focus on the product details, Note Attributes are more about the extra information customers provide that may not always be connected to a specific item in their cart. Think of it as a customer leaving a note with an order, this information could come from Shopify or third-party apps. 

Whether it’s a dietary restriction for a restaurant order or a shipping request, this data helps you serve the customer’s needs and deliver an exceptional experience.

Shopify Notes: Adding Context to Orders

The Note section in Shopify is typically used for additional context. This is where a customer might leave a message regarding their order. For example, if someone places an order for a customized item, they might say, “Please make sure to write ‘Happy Birthday’ on the cake.” 

This section helps you capture that important information to avoid any mistakes during fulfillment. It is only available on Shopify to make your store experience better than before. 

Report Pundit helps businesses understand these fields, which is essential for businesses that need detailed, customizable reports. Line Item Properties, Note Attributes, and Notes provide rich, actionable data that can be used to analyze the entire customer journey, helping businesses make smarter decisions. 

Whether you’re evaluating your best-selling custom items or understanding customer preferences, these details help paint a complete picture.

Case Study: Exporting Custom Product Options from Shopify Orders

Challenge

A Shopify merchant using the Product Options app needed to export customer selections such as Size and Color as separate columns in the order export. These selections are stored as line item properties rather than standard variants, and Shopify default reports do not break out custom option data from apps. This made it hard to view selections in a structured format, to export the data for order management and analysis, and to handle orders that contain different sets of custom product options.

Example Case

The merchant provided an example order (#0001) where a customer selected the following options:

• Custom Option 1: Size – Medium
  
  
• Custom Option 2: Color – Blue
  
  

These selections were captured as line item properties within Shopify, but not displayed as individual columns in reports.

Solution

Using Report Pundit, we created a customized report that:

• Pulled all line item properties from past orders
  
  
• Mapped each property (e.g., Size, Color) into its own column
  
  
• Ensured the report included multiple product option sets when available
  
  

The setup allowed the merchant to have a clean, column-based view of all custom selections without manual formatting.

How Line Item Properties and Note Attributes Streamline Shopify Operations

Let’s say you’re running a restaurant that sells custom cakes. You could use Line Item Properties to track flavors, designs, and sizes, and send that data directly to the kitchen for preparation. 

Meanwhile, Note Attributes might capture customer delivery instructions or dietary preferences. If a customer adds a message like “Please make it gluten and sugar-free,” this information will be stored in the Note section, ensuring you fulfill that specific request. 

Having all this information at your fingertips simplifies communication with your vendors, ensures better customer service, and makes the entire order process run smoothly.

Conclusion

Capturing order details like customizations, special instructions, and additional notes is vital for accurate fulfillment and a positive customer experience in Shopify. While Shopify’s native reports offer limited flexibility, using a tool like Report Pundit allows merchants to extract Line Item Properties, Note Attributes, and Notes into well-structured, easy-to-read formats. This not only streamlines operations and saves hours of manual work but also turns detailed order data into actionable insights—helping merchants better understand customer preferences, improve products, and deliver a smoother shopping journey.